There seems to be lots of 19th C. Southern people with Classical names like Cassius or cities with names like Rhodes. Was Classical literature popular with the Southern elite? How did it inform American ideology in that time & place? Was Spartacus an icon for abolitionists, Cicero for aristocrats?

by Dinocrocodile

lcnielsen

Followup: Cletus is a variant of a Greco-Latin name. How/when did it become stereotyped as a "hillbilly name"? (E.g. Cletus Spuckler on Simpsons).

sunagainstgold

/u/Cosmic_Charlie has an old answer about names of enslaved people that covers classical/Roman names!

(Just keep in mind the answer is from four years ago, when the average answer wasn't as long or detailed.)